Bacterial infections are a major global health hazard affecting millions of people worldwide. Many antibacterial drugs and articles have been developed over the years for better treatment or prevention of bacterial infections. Bacterial resistance to conventional antibiotics is one of the most serious problems facing world health today. Thus research towards development of newer antibiotics is imperative. In the recent past only Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) have shown some promise as potential antibiotics and several of them are undergoing clinical trials. AMPs are sentinels of innate immune system of most species and are usually the first line of defense against any infection. Naturally occurring AMPs are found to have a variety of medicinal properties e.g. antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anticancer, antiplasmodial activities. While most of the conventional antibiotics act by targeting intracellular organelles of bacteria, AMPs are known to act primarily by causing lysis of the bacterial cell membrane. Consequently, unlike in the case of conventional antibiotics, where even point mutations can render them inactive, bacteria are slow to develop resistance against antimicrobial peptides.
Despite the advantages, no AMP has been approved for clinical use, although some are undergoing clinical trials. The main reasons for these are their high in vivo toxicity, liability towards proteases and their high cost of manufacture. Although most of the natural AMPs are similar in their design, allowing facial amphiphilicity during antimicrobial action, their major limitations lie in the complexity of their synthesis. Consequently, substantial effort has been directed towards development of designs and strategies to counter the problems faced by AMPs.
In consideration to the aforementioned limitations, the applicants of the instant disclosure aim to arrive at antimicrobial compounds which are not only effective towards wild-type bacteria, but also, towards multi drug-resistant bacteria, less toxic and cost effective. The description herein will in detail illustrate the disclosure evidently describing the noted features of the invention.